Cdn-Firearms Digest Saturday, March 8 2008 Volume 11 : Number 265 In this issue: Voice of police [url/fwd] AP IMPACT: US troops losing hearing CPA Press Release SK Poacher fined $175,000 Father De Souza "A student reportedly shot the gunman twice before an..." Police wrap up investigation on guns found downtown USA - A Key Case on Gun Control ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 12:12:10 -0800 From: Len Miller Subject: Voice of police Cc: Vic Toews , Garry Breitkreuz , Mike Ackermann , Susan Clairmont From Crime Watch Magazine . . (ex NFA Ont. division) Nov 2007. Letters to Editor; I am a peace officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. One of my current responsibilities is to train new cadets, that have recently graduated from Depot Division by furthering their 'hands on' training in the field. I am very concerned about this new Bill regarding firearms registration. I am concerned that if is not passed in the House that more Mounties may face the same fate as the two young men did within the last month. The firearms registration must be abolished once and for all ! I find I have to deprogram every cadet when it comes to CFRO checks (Canadian Firearms Registry On-line) and their reliability in regards to officer safety. One dark evening, myself and a newly graduated recruit had to visit a residence of someone suspected of a violent crime. The cadet told me rather proudly, that he had conducted a CFRO check on the house and that it showed there were no firearms present so we should not have to worry. I scolded his ignorance and naivety. I told him to stop and think for a moment. I said, ''Do you think honestly that someone living a criminal lifestyle and is in possession of firearms has any intension of registering them?'' I told him to never place any faith in the registry and most of all that just because nothing is registered to an individual that an officer's safety is insured. Conversely , do not believe that just because someone has a firearm registered that they will never use it in the commission of an offence! I does not matter if a gun is registered, if someone is bent on crime they will use a registered or non-registered gun. If no gun is available they will use something else. In my evaluation, the registry causes more criminal code infractions ( before amnesty) as police query law abiding citizen's guns to see if they are registered . . only to find out that they may not be . . in spite of the fact they owner did in fact ATTEMPT to register them; or the information on the registration certificate is incorrect, etc. making the gun owner appear negligent. The gun registry places police officer's lives at risk. The gun registry offers a false sense of security. The gun registry is making criminals out of otherwise law abiding citizens. They gun registry is eating up resources that the RCMP and every other municipal or first nation force desperately needs. The gun registry consumes valuable time for the average police officer on the street who has real crime to fight. Saying guns are the problem is like saying pens are the cause of spelling errors. or that cars are the cause of drunk driving, fast food restaurants the cause of obesity. When will common sense prevail? People need to be held accountable for their actions. That is what the Conservatives did with the Liberals when in opposition AND THEN ON A LARGER SCALE WHEN ELECTED. The gun registry brings justice into disrepute. It is an absolute waste of taxpayer money. The registry does nothing to fight crime issues in this country. (Name withheld.) - ------ --------- ( upper case by Len from Vancouver ) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:03:50 -0400 From: Rod Regier Subject: [url/fwd] AP IMPACT: US troops losing hearing http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080307/ap_on_re_us/combat_hearing_loss AP IMPACT: US troops losing hearing By CHELSEA J. CARTER, Associated Press Writer Soldiers and Marines caught in roadside bombings and firefights in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming home in epidemic numbers with permanent hearing loss and ringing in their ears, prompting the military to redouble its efforts to protect the troops from noise. Hearing damage is the No. 1 disability in the war on terror, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and some experts say the true toll could take decades to become clear. Nearly 70,000 of the more than 1.3 million troops who have served in the two war zones are collecting disability for tinnitus, a potentially debilitating ringing in the ears, and more than 58,000 are on disability for hearing loss, the VA said. "The numbers are staggering," said Theresa Schulz, a former audiologist with the Air Force, past president of the National Hearing Conservation Association and author of a 2004 report titled "Troops Return With Alarming Rates of Hearing Loss." One major explanation given is the insurgency's use of a fearsome weapon the Pentagon did not fully anticipate: powerful roadside bombs. Their blasts cause violent changes in air pressure that can rupture the eardrum and break bones inside the ear. Also, much of the fighting consists of ambushes, bombings and firefights, which come suddenly and unexpectedly, giving soldiers no time to use their military-issued hearing protection. "They can't say, 'Wait a minute, let me put my earplugs in,'" said Dr. Michael E. Hoffer, a Navy captain and one of the country's leading inner-ear specialists. "They are in the fight of their lives." In addition, some servicemen on patrol refuse to wear earplugs for fear of dulling their senses and missing sounds that can make the difference between life and death, Hoffer and others said. Others were not given earplugs or did not take them along when they were sent into the war zone. And some Marines weren't told how to use their specialized earplugs and inserted them incorrectly. Hearing damage has been a battlefield risk ever since the introduction of explosives and artillery, and the U.S. military recognized it in Iraq and Afghanistan and issued earplugs early on. But the sheer number of injuries and their nature "particularly the high incidence of tinnitus" came as a surprise to military medical specialists and outside experts. The military has responded over the past three years with better and easier-to-use earplugs, greater efforts to educate troops about protecting their hearing, and more testing in the war zone to detect ear injuries. The results aren't in yet on the new measures, but Army officials believe they will significantly slow the rate of new cases of hearing damage, said Col. Kathy Gates, the Army surgeon general's audiology adviser. Considerable damage has already been done. For former Staff Sgt. Ryan Kelly, 27, of Austin, Texas, the noise of war is still with him more than four years after the simultaneous explosion of three roadside bombs near Baghdad. "It's funny, you know. When it happened, I didn't feel my leg gone. What I remember was my ears ringing," said Kelly, whose leg was blown off below the knee in 2003. Today, his leg has been replaced with a prosthetic, but his ears are still ringing. "It is constantly there," he said. "It constantly reminds me of getting hit. I don't want to sit here and think about getting blown up all the time. But that's what it does." Sixty percent of U.S. personnel exposed to blasts suffer from permanent hearing loss, and 49 percent also suffer from tinnitus, according to military audiology reports. The hearing damage ranges from mild, such as an inability to hear whispers or low pitches, to severe, including total deafness or a constant loud ringing that destroys the ability to concentrate. There is no known cure for tinnitus or hearing loss. The number of servicemen and servicewomen on disability because of hearing damage is expected to grow 18 percent a year, with payments totaling $1.1 billion annually by 2011, according to an analysis of VA data by the American Tinnitus Association. Anyone with at least a 10 percent loss in hearing qualifies for disability. From World War II and well through Vietnam, hearing damage has been a leading disability. Despite everything that has been learned over the years, U.S. troops are suffering hearing damage at about the same rate as World War II vets, according to VA figures. But World War II and Iraq cannot easily be compared. World War II was a different kind of war, waged to a far greater extent by way of vast artillery barrages, bombing raids and epic tank battles. Given today's fearsome weaponry, even the best hearing protection is only partly effective- and only if it's properly used. Some Marines were issued a $7.40 pair of double-sided earplugs, with one side designed to protect from weapons fire and explosions, the other from aircraft and tank noise. But the Marines were not given instructions in how to use the earplugs, and some cut them in half, while others used the wrong sides, making the devices virtually useless, Hoffer said. Today, instructions are handed out with the earplugs. In any case, hearing protection has its limits. While damage can occur at 80 to 85 decibels - the noise level of a moving tank - the best protection cuts that by only 20 to 25 decibels. That is not enough to protect the ears against an explosion or a firefight, which can range upwards of 183 decibels, said Dr. Ben Balough, a Navy captain and chairman of otolaryngology at the Balboa Navy Medical Center in San Diego. The Navy and Marines have begun buying and distributing state-of-the-art earplugs, known as QuietPro, that contain digital processors that block out damaging sound waves from gunshots and explosions and still allow users to hear everyday noises. They cost about $600 a pair. The Army also has equipped every soldier being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan with newly developed one-sided earplugs that cost about $8.50, and it has begun testing QuietPro with some troops. In addition, the Navy is working with San Diego-based American BioHealth Group to develop a "hearing pill" that could protect troops' ears. An early study in 2003 on 566 recruits showed a 25 to 27 percent reduction in permanent hearing loss. But further testing is planned. And for the first time in American warfare, for the past three years, hearing specialists or hearing-trained medics have been put on the front lines instead of just at field hospitals, Hoffer said. Marines and soldiers are getting hearing tests before going on patrol and when they return to base if they were exposed to bombs or gunfire. "You have guys that don't want to admit they have a problem," Hoffer said. "But if they can't hear what they need to on patrol, they could jeopardize their lives, their buddies' lives and, ultimately, their mission." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:12:09 -0400 From: "M.J. Ackermann, MD" Subject: CPA Press Release To: pcollin@cpa-acp.ca CC: Day.S@prl.gc.ca To: Pierre Collin, Communications Officer, CPA Re: http://www.cpa-acp.ca/fileserver/getfile.asp?lv=0&d=news_files/2008/MEDIA_RELEAS-Mar0608-E.pdf Tell you what, guys, Stop insisting that the Liberal white elephant long gun registry be maintained and you will help save $100 million dollars annually that are currently being squandered to satisfy the illusory ideals of left wing fools. This endless hemorrhage is adding to the already wasted $3 billion this boondoggle has cost to date. This amount could have paid the salaries, training, and equipment of 2500 police for ten full years. Instead we have nothing to show for it, just bureaucratic busy-work. Stop whining about the lack of funding you want all the while you urge the State to pour those same funds down the bottomless pit of the gun registry. Your frantic clinging to an ideologically driven program that has no chance of ever reducing violent crime has an air of desperation to it. The question you cannot escape is: In the face of incontrovertible evidence that bans and registries don't work to achieve their stated goals of violence reduction, why do you continue to demand bans and registries? What's in it for you? Money? No, because you state you don't have enough. Public relations? No, because this single issue has driven a huge wedge between you and your erstwhile firmest supporters - the several million lawful firearm owners (think back to the sixties). Power? No, I don't believe you actually want to create the kind of society that total civilian firearm bans inevitably lead to. So then what? Please do tell. After 13 years of this mess, we know for certain these programs don't work: > March 4, 2008 - End 'nanny state' bans, argues major new study > Prohibitions impose huge costs on individuals and society, yet produce few benefits in return > http://www.iea.org.uk/record.jsp?type=release&ID=138 > http://www.iea.org.uk/files/upld-release138pdf?.pdf Of course we knew it back then too: > > http://oldfraser.lexi.net/publications/critical_issues/1995/gun/ Here is a comprehensive resource for you to use to increase your understanding: > Gun Facts, by Guy Smith > > http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/4.2/GunFacts4-2-Screen.pdf Thank you for your attention. - -- M.J. Ackermann, MD (Mike) Rural Family Physician, Sherbrooke, NS Box 13, 120 Cameron Rd. Sherbrooke, NS Canada B0J 3C0 902-522-2172 mikeack@ns.sympatico.ca "Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst". ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:17:27 -0500 From: Lee Jasper Subject: SK Poacher fined $175,000 Big fine for big (game) crime Ontario man charged $175,000 for poaching in Saskatchewan By THE CANADIAN PRESS > http://www.torontosun.com/News/Canada/2008/03/07/4938431.html MEADOW LAKE, Sask. — An Ontario man, who runs a guiding and outfitting operation, has received a $175,000 fine for operating without a license and hunting out of season in Saskatchewan. It’s believed to be the largest-ever fine for such a violation in the province. Wildlife officials say that Jeffrey R. Wolfe of Tillsonburg, Ont., was convicted in provincial court in Meadow Lake, Sask. A three-month investigation in 2005 confirmed that Wolfe was guiding American hunters on off-season hunts for moose, bear, white-tailed deer and elk near Meadow Lake in northern Saskatchewan. Nancy Heppner, Saskatchewan’s environment minister, says illegal hunting and outfitting robs the people of the province of its natural resources. She calls the penalty “significant” and says she’s confident it will send the message that the province’s wildlife is valued and will be protected. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 20:28:48 -0500 From: Subject: Father De Souza He was right on one part.. the Polcie got way too much power, and yes the crowns dont particularly care about fairness judicial or otherwise, they are part of law enforcem,ent, not peace officers. next thing to an insurance salesman on the scum scale ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 01:34:17 -0600 From: Larry James Fillo Subject: "A student reportedly shot the gunman twice before an..." Subject: "A student reportedly shot the gunman twice before an off-duty Israeli army officer killed him." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7282948.stm Only the BBC story notes that it was a student (with a handgun) who stopped the terrorist. Some report that someone shot the gunman twice in the head (with a handgun) and then credit an off-duty soldier who finished him off with a rifle. Other media only mention the soldier. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 07:57:00 -0700 From: Dennis & Hazel Young Subject: Police wrap up investigation on guns found downtown SUDBURY STAR March 8, 2008 Police wrap up investigation on guns found downtown Posted By Carol Mulligan Greater Sudbury Police has concluded a nearly week-long search of a downtown apartment building where hundreds of firearms were seized. But investigators are "crossing their Ts and dotting their Is" before wrapping up their examination of the incident and deciding if more charges will be laid against building owner and tenant Giorgio Bassetti. Police were called to the eight-unit building at 295 Cedar St. last week after receiving a report a gun had been fired. Few details of the incident have been released, but police remained on the scene for six days, conducting an inventory of firearms and ammunition and carting away long evidence boxes filled with guns. Bassetti, 76, has been a gun collector for more than 45 years. The Inco retiree is now facing at least 20 weapons-related charges, including careless use or storage of a firearm. He is free on bail and his next court appearance is scheduled for March 26. Greater Sudbury Police spokesman Const. Bert Lapalme said Friday that the investigation of the site on Cedar Street is complete, but officers are verifying if all the weapons found in Bassetti's residence were registered. "There are some things they need to check," said Lapalme. Insp. Bob Keetch would not say how many weapons were found in the well-maintained brick and stone Georgian-style building, but said it was "in the hundreds." Police haven't issued any formal statements about the investigation and charges, but have been releasing limited information after a neighbour phoned news media to inquire about what was going on next door. Lapalme said Chief Ian Davidson is expected to make a statement next week about the case and to reinforce his opinion that long firearms should be registered. Davidson is first vice-president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, and will move up to president in June of this year. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 08:02:11 -0700 From: Dennis & Hazel Young Subject: USA - A Key Case on Gun Control US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT A Key Case on Gun Control In a landmark case, the Supreme Court considers just how far the Second Amendment's freedoms go By Emma Schwartz Posted March 6, 2008 Dick Heller, a longtime resident of the District of Columbia, carries a handgun for his job as a private security guard. But at the end of his shift, he packs up the .38 revolver and stashes it in a vault. He would like to keep a gun for protection at his Capitol Hill home, where he has endured the sound of gunfire for years. But he can't, because D.C. law forbids it. "They give me a gun to protect them," he says of the government, "but I'm a second-class citizen when I finish work." One of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, the D.C. statute is the focus of a March 18 U.S. Supreme Court hearing that marks the most significant case on gun control in decades. With Heller as plaintiff, it is the first test since 1939 of whether the Second Amendment supports an individual's right to bear arms and not just a state's right to form a militia. It is a crucial distinction. A ruling in favor of the individual right could trigger a wave of constitutional challenges to gun control laws nationwide. And it could suddenly bring a volatile issue-one particularly uncomfortable for Democrats-into play during a presidential election year. "It's significant because either it's going to fuel attempts to restrict gun ownership or it could put a constitutional wet blanket on any effort to control gun ownership," says Martin Redish, a constitutional law professor at Northwestern University. For all the passion on both sides of the Second Amendment debate, the Supreme Court has said remarkably little over the years about to whom the right applies. Specifically, the amendment states that "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." For most of American history, courts have interpreted the Second Amendment to apply to the collective right of states to assemble groups of armed citizens, such as the National Guard. Nine federal circuit courts have upheld that position, and the Supreme Court favored it when it last considered the issue in the 1939 case. (While that decision upheld the federal regulation of an individual's use of sawed-off shotguns, it didn't directly address the scope of the Second Amendment.) Individual freedom. But in the past few decades, more and more legal experts have supported the position that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to have guns. Although they remain in the minority, proponents include some noted liberal scholars, including Harvard University law Prof. Laurence Tribe and Yale University law Prof. Akhil Reed Amar. At the core, their reasoning is simple: Most other freedoms granted by the Bill of Rights, such as free speech, have been widely interpreted as protecting an individual right; therefore, the Second Amendment should be treated no differently. After a federal appeals court upheld the individual-right argument in 2001 (even as it did not strike down the law in question), the Justice Department, under then Attorney General John Ashcroft, shifted its policy in favor of the individual right. Emboldened, millionaire legal activist Robert Levy, a scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute, bank-rolled a group of lawyers to target the D.C. handgun ban in court. They lined up half a dozen residents as plaintiffs, including Heller, and sued. (Heller's claim is the only one that has survived.) The D.C. law, like laws in Chicago and New York City, doesn't explicitly bar handguns; it requires that all residents register them with the city. Since the city stopped registering handguns in 1976, no one who hadn't registered by then can have a handgun at home. The result, effectively, is a ban. D.C.'s law also bars residents from keeping any other firearm, such as a rifle or a shotgun, loaded or assembled. It is the combination of these restrictions, among the most severe in the nation, that has made the D.C. law vulnerable to challenges by individuals claiming a right to self-defense. Wrote the National Rifle Association in a court brief: "Had Americans in 1787 been told that the federal government could ban the frontiersman in his log cabin, or the city merchant living above his store, from keeping firearms to provide for and protect himself and his family, it is hard to imagine that the Constitution would have been ratified." That essential argument has the backing of scores of supporters, some of them unlikely bedfellows, from Vice President Dick Cheney to the Association of Physicians and Surgeons to Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. One brief was filed by Pink Pistols, a gay and lesbian firearms group whose motto is "Armed gays don't get bashed." Likewise, a group of female state legislators has argued that armed women are better able to protect themselves. The city says that the ban is necessary to protect public safety: In a city with heavy gun violence, fewer guns mean less opportunity for criminals to get hold of them. It argues that the text of the Second Amendment, beginning as it does with a reference to militias, makes it clear that the freedom guaranteed by the amendment is only a collective one. A group of historians specializing in early America, in a brief supporting the city, agrees. When the framers wrote the amendment, the historians argue, "Americans were hardly shy about identifying and discussing such fundamental rights as representation, trial by jury or freedom of conscience. The fact that references to the keeping of firearms are so few and terse...is itself an indicator of how minor a question this was at the time. The same cannot be said about the role of the militia in the constitutional order." Whatever the founders intended, many of those who oppose the D.C. law insist that they are not advocating unrestricted gun freedom. "Reading the Second Amendment to secure the right of a law-abiding individual to possess a common handgun for personal defense," wrote a group of former Justice Department officials, including former Attorneys General Edwin Meese and William Barr, "does not call into question any existing federal firearms regulations, including those restricting the possession of machine guns." Just how much of an impact the Supreme Court's decision will have on the gun debate depends in large part on how the court frames it. There is also a chance that any decision may not apply directly to states because D.C. is not a state. A ruling upholdingonly a collective right to bear arms would come as a blow to gun-rights advocates, who have long used the individual-rights argument to rally support against control laws. What limits? If the court embraces an individual right to bear arms, the result is less clear. A big question is how far that freedom extends. In the past, the Supreme Court has recognized a government's ability to limit or regulate nearly every constitutional right; the freedom of speech, for instance, does not extend to shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. It's a position the Bush Justice Department appeared to recognize when, in supporting individual gun rights, it cautioned the Supreme Court against defining that right so broadly that it effectively restricted the government's ability to place limits on gun ownership. Such a ruling, the Justice Department said, could invalidate existing federal laws, including the machine gun ban. But a ruling in favor of a restricted individual right-one that allowed some government regulation of guns-could, paradoxically, do more harm than good to the gun-rights lobby. An endorsement of individual rights would come as a moral victory, but support of restrictions could represent a loss; it could tacitly uphold most of the gun control legislation across the country. "Even if the Supreme Court says [bearing arms] is an individual right, it's not likely to be the end of state and local government efforts to enact gun laws," says Jon Vernick, a public-health professor at Johns Hopkins University. "There are at least two parts to any answer to the question of what we might expect to see next: What does the Supreme Court say is permissible, and what do policymakers think is possible?" ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V11 #265 *********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Moderator's e-mail address: mailto:d.jordan@sasktel.net List owner: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca FAQ list: http://www.magma.ca/~asd/cfd-faq1.html and http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Faq/cfd-faq1.html Web Site: http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/homepage.html FTP Site: ftp://teapot.usask.ca/pub/cdn-firearms/ CFDigest Archives: http://www.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca/~ab133/ or put the next command in an e-mail message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca get cdn-firearms-digest v04.n192 end (192 is the digest issue number and 04 is the volume) To unsubscribe from _all_ the lists, put the next five lines in a message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca unsubscribe cdn-firearms-digest unsubscribe cdn-firearms-alert unsubscribe cdn-firearms-chat unsubscribe cdn-firearms end (To subscribe, use "subscribe" instead of "unsubscribe".) If you find this service valuable, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the freenet we use: Saskatoon Free-Net Assoc., P.O. Box 1342, Saskatoon SK S7K 3N9 Home page: http://www.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca/ These e-mail digests are free to everyone, and are made possible by the efforts of countless volunteers. Permission is granted to copy and distribute this digest as long as it not altered in any way.